by Chris Miller
Suddenly, it all made sense. The mirror was the connection between my dad and Belac. That’s why it was hidden, because my dad’s desire was to be hidden from the things he’d seen in the Eye of Ends.
“So when I destroyed the mirror…” I started to say.
“You destroyed the ability for Belac and Caleb to exist on separate sides. Belac and your father are united again.”
“But my father stopped Belac—he’s himself again.”
“So it would seem,” Faldyn said, looking my father over. “But the Speculumbra is a parasite that is not so easily eliminated. It can return at any moment; you never know when. It may have vanished for a time, but as long as he lives, the desire to feed the Speculumbra will live in him. It needs blood to survive.”
“That explains Belac’s fascination with leeches. It was the only way he could keep control of my father.”
Faldyn nodded, “And we cannot let him have another drop…no matter how hard it is or how badly he wants it.”
I was reminded of Gabby’s tales of Gerwyn and how he had become dependent on leech blood as well. I wondered if this was anything like that.
“Gabby once told me there was a time when Gerwyn was transformed. He was always drinking leech blood too. She said they cured him by bathing him in a pool of some kind.”
“Yes, the pools of Cornin,” Faldyn said. “Sadly, the pools are dried up for the season.”
“But it’s raining.”
“Ah, but the pools are underground and fed from a spring that only fills them three times a year. If my calculations are correct, we are still two cycles of the moon away. No, for now, we will just have to keep a sharp eye on him. The important thing is to make sure he never touches leech blood again.”
Faldyn removed the rat from the fire and examined it again. Considering it done, he allowed it to cool and tore off a piece of meat. He offered me a piece and despite its ugly appearance, I discovered it didn’t taste nearly as bad as I expected.
The night passed slowly. Even though the rain had let up, the wind did not. It whistled around the tower like a howling ghost in the darkness. Faldyn wasn’t tired, but after twenty-four hours with no rest, I was. He offered to care for my father while I slept. I accepted and sat on the driest part of the floor, pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head between them. But I didn’t go to sleep. Instead, I used the opportunity to silently keep an eye on Faldyn. I still didn’t fully trust him. After all, he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about what it was he was after.
Peering through my legs, I watched the grizzly man as he tended to my father and stoked the fire. Every once in awhile, he’d cast a quick glance my direction. I’d close my eyes and count to ten before opening them again. This went on for about an hour before I could no longer fend off the lulling effects of fatigue. It came slowly at first, weighing on my eyelids and slowing my pulse to a crawl. I caught myself nodding off a time or two. Whenever it happened, I’d make sure my father was still lying in bed, that Faldyn wasn’t up to anything suspicious and that Vogler wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Eventually, my plan backfired and I nodded off, this time for good. When I awoke, it was to a brilliant beam of morning sunlight streaming through one of the lower cracks in the tower walls. The bed of hay was empty and Faldyn was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 23
A Change of Plans
Losing things comes natural to me. It doesn’t really matter how big or small something is…if it can be lost, I’ll manage to lose it at least once in my life. There was even a time when I managed to lose the kitchen sink (no, I’m not kidding, but it’s a long story involving my Uncle Jim, a kitchen remodel and a trip to the dump in which I mistakenly loaded the wrong sink). But of all the things I’ve lost in my life, I never thought it would be possible to find and lose my father, all in one night. This had to be the biggest blunder of all time.
Storming across the room, I bolted out the door into the morning light. The air was crisp and cold…the moist ground steamed as the previous night’s rainfall evaporated in the sun.
“Dad!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Dad, where are you?”
I spotted Faldyn wandering casually back toward the tower with a handful of rats dangling from his hand by their tails. I marched right up and laid into him.
“All right, Faldyn! Where is he?”
Faldyn gave me an indignant look. He could sense the accusation in my tone and didn’t appreciate it.
“If by ‘him’ you mean your father,” he said firmly, “then he is right over there.”
Faldyn pointed across the misty hilltop to the edge of the hill crest where my father stood alone. I was happy to see him standing again. Surely, that meant he was going to recover.
“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish for having assumed the worst of Faldyn. It was hard to change my picture of him. “What is he doing?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. He’s just been standing there for the past hour; hasn’t said a word since he woke up this morning. Perhaps you’ll have better luck. I’ll get a meal started while you talk with him.” Faldyn raised the ugly rat-things even with my eyes. I scrunched up my face and looked away.
“Yeah, can’t wait,” I said half-heartedly before heading toward my father.
Dad was dressed in the simple beige tunic and leather belt I had borrowed from the peg on the wall. His hands were clasped together behind his back, and he was looking over the land below. In a way, he appeared almost statuesque in his stance.
“Hey, Dad. What are you doing out here?” I asked.
He didn’t respond.
“Tough night last night, huh?” I asked, trying to break the silence. He sighed and glanced down into the swamp at the blackened ruins of the place that had once been his home. He seemed to want to say something, but held his tongue.
“Talk to me, Dad,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He eyed me sadly and finally broke his silence.
“It’s happening,” Dad said.
“What is?”
“The end,” he said simply, letting the words hang in the air like a dagger over my chest. The way he spoke made it sound so deadly…so final.
“End of what? Is it something you saw in the Eye of Ends?”
He didn’t say it but as Dad looked me over I knew he was determining how much he should share.
“What is it, Dad?” I asked again, pressing him for an answer. “Tell me what’s going on. You can trust me.”
“How much did she tell you?”
“Who, Desi?”
Dad nodded.
“She told me that Tonomis is after the Bloodstone, that he’ll stop at nothing to gain control of it and use it to take over Solandria.”
He shook his head.
“No, Hunter, it’s much worse than that.”
“How much worse?” I asked.
“Tonomis doesn’t want to control Solandria…he’s working with Sceleris now. Together they plan on destroying it—to bring the Author’s story to an end.”
“Can he do that?”
Dad nodded. “I’ve already seen it.”
Of course he had; Dad had entered the Eye of Ends. He had navigated to the very center of the Maze. He saw the final images of the history of our worlds. He had witnessed it for himself.
“But why would he destroy everything? What good could that possibly accomplish?”
“He believes it is the only way to truly be free of the Author’s will. He wanted me to join him. After destroying the Author’s story, he plans to use the Bloodstone to birth a new one, a world without evil, free from the Author’s control.”
“You mean, like your world?” I asked.
Dad’s face turned suddenly sour. He took offense at the comment, and only after I said it did I realize it made him sound like he was no better than
Tonomis himself.
“No,” Dad snorted. “Nothing like that. What I created was a sanctuary, a place of safety to hide in. I built my world out of necessity to escape the evil Tonomis was planning. I am not like him.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean that you….”
“I know, I know…it’s okay,” Dad said, holding up his hand to halt my apology. “You know, Hunter, leaving you behind was the hardest thing I ever did. I never wanted to, but it was the only way I could save you from him, from what he was going to do to you…to our world.”
He started to choke up as he said it, and looked briefly away so I wouldn’t see. The toughness in him was breaking down as he realized his best laid plans had fallen apart. I put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
“Without my bloodstone,” Dad said, staring blankly at the smoldering remains of his castle, “I can’t hide anymore…. Tonomis will find us and kill us both.”
He locked his icy blue eyes on me to make sure I had heard him correctly.
“Kill us? Why?” I questioned.
“Because we’re the only ones who have handled the Bloodstone, Hunter,” Dad said. “He is threatened by that. That’s why I had to hide; I wanted to save you. I thought that if I could stop him from finding me, maybe we could save the rest of Solandria as well.”
“We can get help, Dad. The Codebearers…and Aviad, they’ll know what to do. The Author will help us stop Tonomis.”
“The Author?” Dad scoffed. “The Author!”
I nodded weakly.
“Don’t you get it? The Author’s the one behind it.”
“How can you say that?” I asked.
“Did you forget who created the Eye of Ends? It’s the Author’s story, Hunter. I’ve seen the ending he has in mind. I’ve been there. Tonomis will kill you…and me…and then Solandria will be destroyed. It is what the Author has written.”
“But he wouldn’t end our story that way; the Author is good.”
“Is he?”
The way he said it made me uncomfortable. Of course the Author was good. I had met him. He had rewritten me…given me a new heart. Evil people didn’t do that.
“We can trust him, Dad. I know we can.”
Dad looked unconvinced. Obviously, he didn’t share my enthusiasm and confidence in the Author and his ways.
“I used to believe that too, but I’ve learned he doesn’t care. Good and evil is all the same to him, Hunter. He’s writing both sides of the story, playing both sides of the game. He allows the Shadow to run free, promising to one day make everything right. But I’ve seen what he is up to—the Eye never lies. The Author may be good, but even if he is…he must be evil, maniacal and vindictive as well.”
He sighed as he looked over the ruins of his former life—the castle of Belac. He was a man without direction, a man whose fate seemed sealed to usher in the very doom he had tried to escape.
“The Author always has the final word,” he said sadly.
“But there must be another way. Tonomis doesn’t have your bloodstone yet. You do, right?”
“I did,” he corrected, “but I left it in the world of the mirror, a world you destroyed.”
“So your bloodstone is gone, then,” I said. “That’s even better. If it doesn’t exist, Tonomis can’t find it….”
My father shook his head, cutting me short.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said. “A bloodstone contains the Code of Life in it and can never be destroyed. By destroying the mirror, the power of the bloodstone will return to its point of origin—the center of the Eye of Ends. Whoever has the Eye has the ability to find the Bloodstone. That is what Tonomis has been after; it’s what he was using me to retrieve. He told me we would change the world with it. I believed him at first, but when I saw the Bloodstone in the center of the Eye, it revealed the truth. That’s when I ran. I had seen the destruction Tonomis intended to do with it.”
“But we know where the Eye is! You left it with Simon. We can get the Bloodstone again. We just have to go back and use the Eye to….”
“Hold on a minute…who’s Simon?” Dad asked.
I searched Dad’s face for any sign that he knew what I was talking about. Apparently he didn’t.
“Simon Ot, your friend? He helped you hide from Tonomis, remember?”
Dad’s expression was a blank slate until a sudden thought crossed his mind and brightened his eyes.
“Clever,” Dad said, smiling to himself.
“What?” I asked,
“What did you say his name was again?”
“Simon Ot,” I said.
“Spell it backward.”
“To Nomis…Tonomis,” I said, feeling stupid for not having noticed it before. “Simon is Tonomis! But how? I thought Tonomis was really Vogler, the big detective with an attitude and the ability to form out of birds.”
“He very well could be both,” Dad explained. “Tonomis isn’t exactly human, you know. There were many things about him that were quite unnatural.”
Of course, Tonomis himself told me that he went by many names….Vogler was one; Simon must have been another. I was so caught up in the idea of searching for my father that I had failed to realize I had led my father’s enemy right to him.
“You mean all this time I’ve been…set up?”
“I’m afraid so,” Dad said with a frown.
“And Desi…she’s been….”
“Working for him all along. She’s one of Tonomis’ favorite distractions. She’s a Vicess, half human—half Shadow!”
I buried my face in my hands and wanted to beat myself for not figuring it out sooner. I hated being made a fool of…especially by a girl. She had played her part perfectly, pretending to be in trouble when Vogler attacked at the bookshop. She had probably set up the attack in the library and Belac’s castle. I’d been so focused on Vogler as the threat I hadn’t even considered that Desi was really the one leading me away.
“I don’t get it. If Desi’s working for Tonomis, then why didn’t she just kill you and me when she had the chance?”
“Because they want to make sure they have the Bloodstone first. She must have known that by destroying the mirror the bloodstone’s power would return to the Eye. Tonomis already knows how to enter the Maze of Rings on his own. I caught him doing it once before I escaped. It was then I realized he had been lying to me. He didn’t need me to enter the Eye…he wanted something else from me. I was being used.”
“We have to stop them…. I’ve been to his hideout; maybe we could sneak in and steal the Eye back.”
“No, it’s much too risky; he’ll have Black-Eyes all over that place. We wouldn’t make it past the entrance.”
“Well, we have to do something.”
Dad pondered the situation for a moment, stroking his chin in that thoughtful way he always had. He bit his lower lip and narrowed his eyes in search of an idea. When it came to him, it was like a light-bulb had been switched on.
“There is one other way…but it’s pretty much a long shot and practically impossible.”
“Sounds like my kind of plan,” I said, leaning forward with anticipation. Dad couldn’t help but smile at my eagerness. He cleared his throat and explained his plan.
“The Eye of Ends is said to be cut from the Living Tree that once fed life into Solandria, right?”
I nodded my agreement. I knew the story well; it was the centerpiece of the Author’s Writ and the first story I had read in the book. Not only had I read about the tree, I had been there and lived the events that were recorded in the book. I had stolen the Bloodstone and as a result, Solandria had been broken. Dad continued his thoughts.
“Long ago, before I fled from Tonomis, I discovered a pattern in the layout of the shards. I wrote about it in my Author’s Writ. The pattern, I felt, would lead me directly to
the secret location of the Lost Shard—the original home of the Living Tree. If my theory is correct, there may still be some of the original tree left, lying about on the shard. It is possible that any part of the tree may provide a second entry point to the Maze of Rings. If Tonomis is inside the Maze, we can gain access as well.”
The plan sounded reasonable. We had nothing to lose, and it was far safer than attempting to break into an underground bunker.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go find this lost shard.”
I started back toward the tower but Dad caught me by the arm before I got far.
“Hold up, Hunter. It’s not going to be so easy. We need to find my Author’s Writ first. That’s where I kept all my notes.”
“Already found it,” I said confidently. “I have it with me back in the tower.”
Together we hurried back. Faldyn looked up from a fresh batch of his ugly rat-on-a-stick meals as we entered.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m glad to see you are feeling better, Caleb. Would you care for some…?”
“Not now,” I said, shoving my way past him in a hurry to retrieve my backpack. I opened the large pocket and pulled out the book...only it wasn’t my father’s Writ after all. Instead, I discovered I was holding a ragged hardbound copy of Watchers: Myth or Mystery, written by Simon Ot.
“Wait, how did that get there?”
Dad looked disappointed.
“Someone must have swapped it out when I wasn’t looking…Desi,” I said, gritting my teeth. Even now she was a step ahead of me. I threw the book across the room in frustration.
“Don’t worry, son,” Dad said, recognizing the look of disappointment on my face. “It was a long shot anyway. It’s my fault for not remembering the silly riddle in the first place.”
“Riddle?” I asked. “You never said it was a riddle.”
“Well, more or less. I suppose for most people it would seem like a line of gibberish. But it’s a pattern and a riddle.”
“I think I know which one you mean. Trista and I deciphered a message from your drawings using a Caesar’s shift,” I said proudly. “When we transferred the letters, they spelled a phrase in the Noctu’s Old Language.”
